Length Contraction of Electrons

If you have a still wire with electrons moving through it, to an outside observer at rest relative to the wire, would the space between the electrons contract? I would think that special relativity causes the electrons to contract, (not the space between them) but the contracting of the electrons would cause the electrons to come closer together.

Staff: Mentor

Electrons are point particles whose length is zero, so there's nothing to contract. The way to get the electrons to move closer together is for you, the observer, to be in motion relative to the wire; that will contract the length between them.

Staff: Mentor

Electron drift velocity (q.v.) in wire is on the order of millimeters per second.

That is true, which makes it all the more remarkable that the effects of the tiny relativistic length contraction of the distance between them is sufficient to explain the appearance of magnetic effects. See, for example, http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/mrr/MRRhandout.pdf